ABSTRACT
In August 1951, Janaki attended the British Association’s annual meeting in Edinburgh. She was presenting her pioneering ideas on cytogeography for the first time on a public platform, based entirely on her researches at Wisley, especially on the Rhododendron and the Camellia. It discussed polyploidy as a factor of active speciation in southeast Asia. This paper would clearly mark an archipelagic turn in her thinking (as opposed to continental thinking), which involved disrupting the notion of insularity and viewing the world as a collection of interconnected islands rather than as closed continental forms. Janaki’s interest was in mapping on a planetary scale (moving beyond regional, national or local boundaries) the migratory patterns or wanderings of plants as they occurred in the footsteps of man. Janaki would be awarded a grant by the French government to work on the Camellia, in particular on Assam teas. The funds would be found inadequate, and she would begin scoping for a research sponsor. It was in this context that she would meet the Camellia connoisseur Ralph Peer, who would promise to help her move to America to explore the Camellia trail.
